Nicanor Reyes St.

, Sampaloc, Manila
Accountancy, Business, and Management

Practical Research 1

Lesson 2:
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE and NATURE OF INQUIRY

Learning objectives:
After this lesson, students are expected to:
1. explain their understanding of the term “inquiry”
2. outline all the ideas they have learned about inquiry
3. identify a question as simple or complex based on the kind of thinking it elicits from them

I. Sources of Knowledge
There are sources of knowledge according to Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh,

• Experience
- the most free source of knowledge; you can find the answers to your questions just by
experience.
• Authority
- people often seek knowledge from someone who has had an experience with the problem
or has some other source of expertise.
• Deductive Reasoning
- introduced by Aristotle, deductive reasoning can be described as a thinking process in
which a person proceeds from general to specific statement using prescribed rules of logic.
Example:
All men are mortal
The king is a man
Therefore, the king is mortal
• Inductive Reasoning
- introduced by Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
- he believes that an investigator should establish general conclusions on the basis of facts
gathered through direct observation.
- from specific to general
Example:
Every mammal has lungs.
All horse are mammals.
Therefore, every horse has lungs.
• Scientific Approach
- also known as the inductive-deductive method
- differs from the inductive reasoning that in that it uses hypotheses.

According to De Poy and Gitlin (1994), there are five basic sources that professionals use to select a topic
and a researchable problem:
• Professional Experience
 - from daily ideas and confusions that arise from professional challenges often yield
significant areas of inquiry.
• Professional Trends
- research topics can also be found or come from publications and newsletters.
- for example, the Psychological Association of the Philippines identified the need to
develop more research in the area of therapeutic effectiveness.
• Public Research
- professional journals that are more or less available to the public provides an overview of
the important studies that are being conducted in a topic area of interest.
• Societal Trends
• Existing Theory
- an inquiry related to theory development is intended to substantiate the theory and
advance its development or modify it.

II. Nature of Inquiry

Inquiry- a learning process that motivates an individual to obtain knowledge or information about
people, things, places, or events
- Done by investigating or asking questions about something he/she is inquisitive about
- Requires collecting of data, meaning, facts, and information about the object of his/her
inquiry and careful examination of the data
- Problem-solving technique that includes cooperative learning because any knowledge from
members of the society can help to make the solution

Governing Principles of Inquiry

- John Dewey’s Theory of Connected Experiences for Exploratory and Reflective Thinking
- Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development
- Jerome Bruner’s Theory on Learner’s Varied World Perceptions

Elements:
- changing knowledge
- creativity
- subjectivity
- socio-cultural factors
- sensory experience
- higher-order thinking strategies

Benefits of Inquiry-Based Learning

1. Elevates interpretative thinking through graphic skills
2. Improves student learning abilities
3. Widens learners’ vocabulary
4. Facilitates problem-solving acts
5. Increases social awareness and cultural knowledge
6. Encourages cooperative learning
7. Provides mastery of procedural knowledge
8. Encourages higher-order thinking strategies
9. Hastens conceptual understanding